Ask yourself: what would Bill Gates do?

I don't remember the Slashdot borg icon (I was 10 in '96 when we got AOL, our first internet service) but I do remember the song 'Bill Gates Must Die', Micro$oft as a derogatory term,the blue screens of death, IE, antitrust, my printer doesn't work (again!), and on and on. I was just a kid but I remember the sentiment being that because of Bill Gates' ruthlessness as a business man the entire computer industry was suffering from a lack of any real competition, a stranglehold on vendors, customer lock-in, and on top of it all you always had to buy a new computer to upgrade to the newest Windows and it would only work for like a couple of months before everything stopped working one by one. I'm not stating all this as fact (though some of it is), that's just the sentiment others around me had at the time (like 1995 - 2001).

Since his departure from MS though I personally see him as a much kinder, gentler, and even more brilliant man than ever before. It's strange because there was a time when I loved to hate the guy but now that he's gone and seeing what Microsoft is doing these days I almost feel like "damn, I wish Bill Gates would come back, that guy was smart". Maybe this is a totally crazy thing to say but I'll say it: I feel like it's the same feeling people who followed politics in the 90's feel about Bill Clinton. They may have been pissed at him for reasons XYZ at the time but now many have a much different memory of him and kind of yearn for him to come back (if it were possible). Nostalgia is a powerful thing.

>Microsoft only licensed an OS, much like Digital Research licensed CP/M, to every computer manufacturer that wanted to distribute it

You say "only" as if the OS weren't a critical part of running a computer and that Microsoft specially included a clause in their agreement with IBM to be able to license to other manufacturers.

>Their advantage was that PC-DOS was bundled with every PC and that was enough to create critical mass.

You say as if that was a chance happening and not a deliberate and very insightful strategy to acquire that advantage compared to, say Apple. Just like how Google made Android free and open to counter Apple.

>I had an Apple II clone (yes, 1977 technology) and never had to set jumpers on an expansion board until I moved to a PC clone in the late 80's.

That's a nice comparison. If Apple had won instead of Microsoft, computer uptake would've been hampered by higher prices because of the lack of commoditization, having only a single vendor that's known to charge exorbitant margins. If you think Apple computers were expensive, imagine what their prices would've been without competition from PCs.

I'd take much cheaper prices and mutiple PC vendors that encouraged PC adoption in the third world over not having to set a few jumpers. Not to mention that Linux was first developed on x86 machines.

Most of the companies you list failed to keep up with the changing marketplace and withered off by being complacent, while Microsoft doggedly kept improving their initially poor offerings(remember the adage, the 3rd version of a Microsoft product is when it gets real).

IE5 was actually better than Netscape at the time which got bogged down in a rewrite. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

With more nimble competitors like Intuit with Quicken, Microsoft didn't make too much headway with Money. Same with Adobe.

To see an example of this playing out now, look at the Xbox versus Playstation. Sony(and Nintentdo) has been scoring a lot of self goals lately.

Don't forget that the businessman is the new political savior.

We all love the oh so charitable landlord who by day evicts his tenants and by night donates cardboard boxes to them for shelter now that they're homeless.

Isn't it so wonderful that the man that's taken more of a share of the world's wealth than any human in history gives some of it back? It should be obvious that if you want to change the world, don't vote or organize, buy more copies of Windows!!

> You say "only" as if the OS weren't a critical part of running a computer

An OS is a critical piece of software, but the PC was also offered with CP/M-86 (IIRC, for a price DR considered suicidal)

> You say as if that was a chance happening and not a deliberate and very insightful strategy

Demanding non-exclusive contract was, in fact, brilliant. That single move turned Microsoft from a small niche software company to the powerhouse it was in the 90's. Had IBM said "no" (as they should), Bill Gates would still be filthy rich and a lot more popular.

> If Apple had won instead of Microsoft (...) having only a single vendor that's known to charge exorbitant margins.

I believe Commodore would have taken care of that. Or Atari. Or VTech, maybe Franklin. Or anyone else. Apple never had the dominance PC cloners have.